Wednesday, August 19, 2015

How to Make Your Own Hardtack

Previously I mostly just thought of hardtack as being something eaten by Civil War soldiers. It actually goes back to the time of the Egyptians, used by sailors. The good thing about hardtack (from a sailor or Civil War perspective) is that it can last for years if it stays dry and is kept away from bugs and such. It is light and easy to transport (think backpacking) but is dense, so it holds a lot of nutrition.

I have wanted to make some for about a year now. I finally got around to trying it. Turns out, it's really easy (and cheap) to make. In fact, you only need three ingredients.

Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups flour
2 cups water
2 1/2 tsp. salt

Mix all ingredients and then roll out on a floured board into a rectangle of about 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into smaller squares and poke holes in each one with a fork on both sides.

Place on a baking sheet and cook for 30 minutes on each side at 375*. Don't forget to flip it!

They are rather hard once they are dried, but they taste similar to a very thick saltine cracker. They had more flavor than I expected. I think they'd be good in soup or coffee. We'll take some on our next backpacking trip and try just that!

25 comments:

I made some several years ago and it might be a good emergency food to keep in a sealed kit as it doesn't seem to go bad easily. It would be good to vacuum seal or can it for real long term use. One will need good teeth if eating it by itself.

My mom and I made that a loonnng time ago when we read about it in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Good to know how to make it I think. I always wondered about embellishments like adding dried herbs or grated parm cheese....

I don't know why, but when I've read about hardtack, usually in a book taking place during the Civil War, I thought it had meat in it. I thought it was like beef jerky. It's neat that it's so easy to make!

Having been privledged to sample some of your trial batch, I can say this is outstanding. It was really good, had a sweet flavor and was chewy instead of just being a big soda cracker like all the commercial hard tack and ships bread I've stored away.

I'm going to use your recipe to make a bunch and store it in my long term food storage.